CLIFTON PARK — The town Planning Board approved a 7-megawatt solar array for Sugar Hill Road on Tuesday evening.
The project, proposed by Solitude Solar, will consist of approximately 20,000 panels positioned on 40 acres of land. It was approved unanimously by the board.
The project will ultimately be a part of New York State’s Community Solar Program, which means that any resident who uses National Grid will be able to hook up to the solar farm to use solar energy, but residents in Clifton Park will have a period of 30 days to sign up for solar energy from the farm before it opens up to the public.
Each megawatt of generated electricity powers, on average, 100 typical homes, though solar energy is dependent on weather. The solar arrays are meant to last at most 25 years.
The array will also be surrounded by a fence. The company plans to visit the site up to three times a year to mow the fields and conduct maintenance and the panel arrays are built to withstand winds up to 90 miles per hour.
An existing access drive off of Sugar Hill Road will be used to access the area of the solar array in the back part of the property.
The Solitude project is one of a handful that have come before the Planning Board in recent months. One array, a 5.3-megawatt array by Borrego Solar, was approved for Ashdown Road in September.
Another proposed solar farm, also by Borrego, would be a 9.2-megawatt array situated on 753 Grooms Road.
Solitude Solar has a lease agreement with the owners of the land for the solar farm, as do both of the Borrego projects.
Categories: -News-, Saratoga County, Schenectady County, Your Niskayuna
